Muscling Through (12 page)

Russell lived in a development near the docks. Not the posh end, by Ocean Village where Sebastian lived so he could go and wank over his yacht any time he wanted, but it wasn’t totally downmarket. His flat was on the second floor, up four flights of stairs. It was all right, I suppose. Nothing like Sebastian’s, of course, but I’d known I wouldn’t get that lucky again. There was a tiny hall that led into a smallish lounge/diner, with other doors off that must be to bed and other rooms. “Great place you’ve got here,” I said, slinging my rucksack on the floor.

Russell looked pleased. “You like it? I know it’s a bit bare—I haven’t had time to do it up much yet.”

“No, it’s great,” I told him, walking past the squashy, lived-in sofa to the window. “That view is amazing,” I added, with a lot more sincerity this time. The flat looked out over Southampton Water, and you could see the lights of ships passing by underneath in the twilight. Farther up to one side was a bridge over the river with tiny little cars driving over it, visible only by their headlamps. Somehow it made me feel like we were right in the heart of things, but in our own little world; part of the city, but above it too.

“It’s great, isn’t it?” Russell said, coming up behind me. “It’s why I bought the place. Just fell in love with that view. You look at that and you feel you can go anywhere, do anything.” It was more words than he’d strung together the whole time in the café.

“Yeah? You always lived here alone?”

Russell nodded once, clamming up again. “I’ll just get changed.”

He disappeared into what must be his bedroom, and I looked around a bit, checking out the bookshelves and the DVD collection like you always do, although hopefully I’d have plenty of time to do that later. There were the engineering books like you’d expect, and the complete works of Terry Pratchett snuggled up to
Gormenghast
and
The Lord of the Rings
, but there was also a whole shelf full of books in French, mostly crime stories, which made sense. You don’t need half as big a vocabulary to read thrillers in a foreign language as you do for science fiction. There were a couple of Arsène Lupin paperbacks that looked familiar from my teenage years, and a solitary Maigret. It made me nostalgic for childhood holidays in Brittany. Back when my dad had still been speaking to me.

“Do you speak French?”

Russell’s voice had startled me, and I spun ’round. He’d changed into jeans and a baggy red T-shirt that made him look like his own kid brother. “Haven’t done in years,” I said, shrugging.

He gave a shy smile. “You’d probably pick it up again all right if you tried. Um. Have you eaten?”

“Not yet, no,” I told him with a smile, sitting on the well-stuffed sofa and putting my arm along the back. I casually rested my right ankle on my left knee, giving him a good look at my package. Laying my cards out on the table, so to speak. “What do you fancy?”

I watched him perch awkwardly on the edge of an armchair and tried not to sigh. He was like a tortoise, I decided. Retreating into his shell every time I tried to get close.

Was he even actually gay?

Still, as long as he let me stay here until the end of Finals, what did I care? I sat forward again. “If you’ve got some food in, I’m not bad at cooking. Or we could get a takeaway? If you’ve got the money, that is,” I added, as it was probably time we got the business details out of the way. “Tom told you I’m skint, right? So I can’t afford any rent, but I’m happy to pay my way in other ways. You know—you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Or, you know, any other bits you want scratching…” I left it hanging, but I didn’t lick my lips. I’ve got some class. And he’d probably have run off screaming.

I could see Russell’s Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed. “Tom said…he said you didn’t have any money.” He frowned. “But you don’t need to…you know.” He stopped, looking like he’d rather be at the salon getting a back, sack and crack.

Shit. He wasn’t gay. I was going to
kill
Tom.

Speak now, or forever lose your love…

The Last Supper

© 2011 Scarlet Blackwell

Table for Two, Book 3

Luc Tessier finally has all the ingredients of a perfect future assembled. His beautiful English fiancé, Daniel, on his arm, five hundred wedding guests on the way, and the honeymoon suite reserved.

Now if only he can get Daniel to stop obsessing over last-minute details. So what if the date is set for Friday the thirteenth? After all they’ve been through to get to this point, what else is left to go wrong?

Plenty, starting with Daniel’s sudden determination to “save” himself for marriage. How does a healthy, hot-blooded Frenchman fend off a bachelor party stripper with one arm while trying to beckon his lover closer with the other—and not go insane?

Daniel wishes he had it as easy as Luc, who’s already finished preparing the extravagant menu. Between contending with a jealous best man, a spiteful mother-in-law, a bad haircut and Luc’s frustrated libido, Daniel’s ready to have a nervous breakdown of failed-pressure-cooker proportions.

Forget making it to the church on time. If they make it through the thirteenth without someone ending up face-first in the wedding cake, it’ll be a miracle…

Warning: Contains more food-related hotness, men in leather thongs and much more Luc and Daniel.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Last Supper:

“I don’t give a shit if you carry a bouquet of shallots up the aisle. Come over here and suck my cock.” Luc Tessier lounged naked on the bed, stroking his erection with his best seductive expression on his haughty face. He was rewarded by his lover Daniel Sheridan turning around from where he sat writing at the dressing table, eyes narrowed in irritation.

Luc loved winding Daniel up. He liked watching the change in his violet eyes. How they darkened to the colour of stormy seas or twilight skies. Daniel was hot, hot,
hot
when he was mad.

“I’m not carrying a fucking bouquet,” Daniel snapped, “or perhaps you’d like me in a dress too?”

“
Oui
,” Luc replied lazily. “With stockings and no panties.” They’d already done that variation one wild night. Daniel in stilettos and mini-skirt—what great legs he had—Luc pretending he was a paying customer before bending Daniel over the arm of the couch and pushing his skirt up to reveal the hidden delights beneath.

“Arsehole,” Daniel muttered and went back to his work. He had a thick, black book in which he constantly wrote annotated wedding plans. He had changed the order for the flowers five times and had suggested to Luc just now that he was going to change them again. Luc didn’t give a flying fuck. He cared only about the catering, which he was doing himself, and the large number of prominent chefs he’d invited to rub their noses in his culinary skill. There’d be a lot of guests experiencing orgasms that day, not just Luc and Daniel on their wedding night. They had already sold the wedding to
Hello
magazine for a cool million. Daniel could have the rarest South American orchids or baskets of dandelions for all Luc cared.

The wedding was taking place in the extensive grounds of Luc’s Paris restaurant in one week, the thirteenth of July. Work was already taking place on the vast marquee, the tables, the stage for the numerous bands Daniel had picked, the fairy lights strung through the trees and the fairground rides to entertain the obligatory little brats.

Of course, “wedding” wasn’t the correct term in France, seeing as it wasn’t legal. The correct term was civil union. Luc abhorred this. He wanted to be
married
to Daniel. He had suggested skipping across the border to Belgium to be properly married, but then his home country wouldn’t have recognised it regardless, so it hardly mattered. What mattered was they called it a wedding and the press called it a wedding. It
was
a wedding, as far as Luc was concerned.

Luc and Daniel were at Luc’s penthouse arguing, as they had been doing for the last few weeks. The plans were boring Luc. All he knew right now was that the madder he made Daniel, the harder Luc got for him.

“Come and sit on my face.”

“I’m not going to sit on your face, Luc. We’re getting married in a week and we have no flowers and one of the string quartet has such severe vertigo that he’s crawling along the floor. Can you play cello lying down?”

“
Je m’en fou
,” Luc retorted and stroked himself, watching Daniel’s reaction carefully in the mirror.

Daniel got to his feet, clearly intent on stalking away as only he could do. If ever there were a demand for a guide book on stalking etiquette, Daniel could write it. He could bang doors, he could flounce, he could sulk and he could throw looks to freeze a person at a hundred yards. And Luc had the perfect antidote to them all.

He climbed off the bed and gripped his lover firmly by the arm. A grip that suggested he wasn’t playing. “Hey, I came home early because I’ve been thinking about you all day. I wanted to show my appreciation for you. Perhaps you could put the book down for just an hour and come to bed with me?”

It almost worked. Words like this were more effective with Daniel than “sit on my face”. Daniel looked torn and then said reluctantly, “I can’t. I’ve got to meet a man about serviettes.”

“What? Going to have each guest’s name monogrammed on the edge?”

Daniel looked thoughtful. “There’s an idea.”

“Christ.”

Daniel glared before he slipped free of his grip, leaving Luc to deal with his own erection.

The serviette man was gay and clearly used his fresh-faced boyish appeal to sell his wares. Obviously he knew Daniel was gay, seeing as the only people who
didn’t
were the bonga-bonga tribe who lived in darkest Borneo, thanks to an embarrassing incident in the press that Luc had virtually predicted the very same week it happened.

Daniel slouched in his chair, the drone of hammers and power tools coming from the marquee threatening to give him a blinding headache, and daydreamed. He had once been a successful food critic and had once hated Luc’s guts. That was until a dinner invitation had led to him being facedown over Luc’s workbench and addicted to the man’s cock for the rest of his life. Not that sex was all they shared together, even if Luc’s appetite was larger than life. Luc might have been arrogant, conceited, stubborn, sarcastic and all-around impossible, but that didn’t stop Daniel from loving him. Even the battle between Luc and Daniel’s mother six months ago hadn’t managed to tear them apart, nor Daniel’s subsequent outing in the press after a rather unfortunate public sexual encounter. Daniel’s mother hadn’t spoken to him since, apart from a curt text message to inform him he was out of her will. Which was a particularly nice touch from the Ice Queen.

Daniel had stopped working after the outing. He had fled to Paris with Luc to lick his wounds and had been looked after by his lover with a tenderness that astounded him. Luc had hidden depths which most people weren’t party to. But even Daniel saw these qualities only sporadically. Usually it was enough, but sometimes the tension between them erupted in a fight that would culminate in separate beds, separate houses or separate countries. Right now, the wedding preparations, which had been going on for two months, after Daniel had finally accepted Luc’s proposal some four months after the event, were pushing them to breaking point. But it wasn’t like they hadn’t been there before.

What Daniel knew was that Luc loved him, despite his deep disinterest in the wedding preparations. At least, those preparations that didn’t involve food, because Luc had firmly taken control of that and seemed to be effortlessly and methodically working his way through it with no outward signs of stress at all. It was only Daniel who was having the nervous breakdown.

“So, what do you think?” The salesman, blond and tanned, almost fluttered his eyelashes.

“About what?” Daniel sat up a bit straighter and tried not to notice the worked-out body in the expensive Italian suit. God, how much did serviette salesmen make, anyway?

“About the monograms on the corner of each?”

“No, I don’t think so. They’re only going to end up in the bin, aren’t they?”

“The
bin
?” The man was French and heavily accented.

“Being thrown away,” Daniel rephrased it.

“
D’accord
. So, the ivory linen, then? Or perhaps the soft pink?”

“I’m not going to have pink serviettes at my wedding,” Daniel warned, a touch irritably. Was the salesman mocking him? Had he seen the incriminating photos on the Internet? Daniel sat on Luc’s lap riding him in a restaurant while a hundred guests stared at them through the window.

“
Bien
. What date again?”

“The thirteenth.”

The salesman winced. “Are you sure?”

“What do you mean?”

“The thirteenth. Not
Friday
the thirteenth?”

A cold sweat drenched Daniel’s back suddenly. “Shit.”

“You’ve gone very pale.”

Daniel scrambled up so fast he almost overturned his chair. “I have to go.”

“But let me give you my card. I’ll write my personal number on it.” The man smiled flirtatiously.

Daniel didn’t notice. He was off across the lawn toward the restaurant.

Muscling Through

JL Merrow

The bigger they come, the harder they fall... in love.

Cambridge art professor Larry Morton takes one, alcohol-glazed look at the huge, tattooed man looming in a dark alley, and assumes he’s done for. Moments later he finds himself disarmed—literally and figuratively. And, the next morning, he can’t rest until he offers an apology to the man who turned out to be more gentle than giant.
 

Larry's intrigued to find there's more to Al Fletcher than meets the eye; he possesses a natural artistic talent that shines through untutored technique. Unfortunately, no one else seems to see the sensitive soul beneath Al’s imposing, scarred, undeniably sexy exterior. Least of all Larry's class-conscious family, who would like nothing better than to split up this mismatched pair.